Good News | Medication Month

May 16, 2018

by Nurse Jamie Daniel

May is Medication month! Over the next couple of weeks, Nurse Jamie is going to provide us with some info, some stories, and some practical tips on medication and assisting with medications for our clients. So stay tuned!

Join us as we celebrate Medication Management and take a deeper look into the ins and outs of medications. Who says Medication Management can’t be fun?

There are quite a few people involved in a client receiving his or her medications like doctors, nurses, pharmacies, hospitals, delivery services and more. Anyone can make a mistake, and others rarely know the client’s routine like we do. Here are a few stories about staff being careful, diligent and preventing errors from reaching the client.

LETS CELEBRATE!!

One day a staff called in knowing his client needed 6 pills and there were only 5 in the box. He knew which medication was missing. He retrieved the medication from its bottle and the client got all of his medications that day!

One staff member was about to open a new antibiotic prescription from the pharmacy for her client who was quite ill. She read that the drug was a Sulfa drug. Knowing that her client was allergic to Sulfa drugs, the staff did not administer it and called the pharmacy and doctor right away. The doctor wrote a new prescription for a different antibiotic. The already sick client was protected from a potentially life-threatening experience!

A couple of staff have called and prevented 2 medication errors! They noticed a medication was missing from their day’s slot and two happened to be in the next day’s slot.

We have a few clients who are very independent and do not have staffing all day. One staff was able to help a client who thought 2 medications were the same kind and tried to “fix it” and only wanted 1 in her pill box.

In all of these situations, a Compass staff member prevented harm. Their caution and attention to medication administration protected the clients.